Just Like the Sun, More Like the Moon
by RawrGodzirra
Summary: "Painted skies-I've seen so many that cannot compare to your ocean eyes." 2nd POV. Xenopolycythemia, prompt: I'm on my knees for you.


**Title**: Just Like the Sun, More Like the Moon

**Rating**: NC-17

**Fandom**: Star Trek XI

**Pairing**: Kirk/McCoy

**Disclaimer**: All characters belong to their original creators, Gene Roddenbury and Paramount Films, and JJ Abrams. I make no profit from this work, which is solely for my amusement and (hopefully) the enjoyment of others.

**Warnings**: Angst, illness, sex

**Summary**: Prompt: I'm on my knees for you.

"_Wasted time._

_I can not say that I was ready for this._

_But, when worlds collide,_

_And all that I have is all that I want._

_The words seem to flow_

_And the thoughts they keep running._

_And all that I have is yours._

_And all that I am is yours."_

It seemed like it was only yesterday you were married to a beautiful woman with blond curls and an easy smile. A little girl wiggling in your arms or running in the fields or putting her mother's make-up on your face when she though you were fast asleep but you really were wide awake.

You had been happy then.

Then your daddy got sick, and you promised to save him. You couldn't and the divorce papers were served. You put on a brave face for your little girl and told her everything was alright-you would see her all the time and talk to her at every moment. You picked her up and swung her around and hugged her while her mother and a man you had once been friends with watched close by.

Then you were shipped off across the country to a place you'd rather not be, far far away from the fields your little girl was playing in and the make-up she was putting on another man's face while he pretended to be asleep.

You don't remember the shuttle ride very well, just chunks of a drunken conversation with a man with electric blue eyes like the Savannah-summer sky.

You don't remember much of the first year at the academy either.

You begin to remember in small, sober spurts your second year. Not much, just that same boy-not-yet-man from the shuttle with eyes that remind you of a sky you miss.

He forces you to look outside your own misery and into the world around you-to put down the bottle and face the day clean and alert, and by your third year, you remember everything you do with meticulous exactness that you had once expected of yourself.

Your world revolves around him like he's the sun, and your the wayward moon destined to be in his shadow and him in yours and it's so natural and perfect. You feed off one another-he give you life and light, and you keep him grounded and stable.

It's probably the worst kind of symbiosis

It's the next natural step to fall in love with the sun known as James Kirk.

After the third test (the kid couldn't say no to challenge-couldn't let sleeping dogs lie but he did the impossible, just like you knew he could), you fall into bed with him.

It's all hands and heat and memorizing touches, languid kisses and pain blurring into pleasure as he fills you, completes you like no one but your daughter ever has, but not in that same way-and it seems wrong to think of her at this time but she always is somewhere in your mind.

You feel wetness slipping down your face a he goes stiff above you and white flashes across you closed eyes. A gentle calloused thumb brushes some away and plush lips kiss the others.

You open your eyes and realize that it's not just your tears dipping down your cheeks, and wipe the tears from his face in much the same way as he wiped them from yours.

Neither of you say a thing, but you don't need to. You just understand.

It doesn't surprise you that he would save the world the same way he saved you.

It does surprise you that he lived, and it's so natural to fall into his arms after all is done and exhaustion over takes you both. You both kiss life into each other because you know that, now, you don't have the time to waste, that any moment could be that last you just _never_ know because everything's changed.

You follow him into the black after visiting and kissing you daughter goodbye. You tell her how much you love her and you'll comm her every chance you get and to be good for her mama and step-daddy.

You can tell from the blank look in her eyes she doesn't really know who you are.

Life progresses in the black, days blurring into one another and hours never quite defined except for the chronos on the walls and desk.

_Xenopolycythemia._

You don't want to tell Jim what the diagnoses was, what the nurses and their dark, faceless, _detached_ voices have drilled into your brain, leaving no room for hope, "_I'm sorry, it's only a matter of time._"

You have no fucking clue what you're going to do. You don't have a clue about anything except that you're dying and there's nothing that can be done about it now-no cure exists, nothing, and now everything just seems pointless because who's going to remember the grumpy doctor after he's dead in a year?

Jim will. And that's why you can't tell him.

Jim is amazing in the way he can find out just about anything, but it's hard to remember the high points of that when he's screaming at you, eyes shining darkly like he's about to cry or kill someone.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Jim shouts, and you wince as it reverberates off the metal walls.

"Yeah, because it's so easy to say, 'Hi, Jim. How was your day? Oh by the way, I'm going to be dead in a year.'" You snap, because it's the only thing keeping you from breaking down.

"Yes! You are!" Jim returns, throwing his hands in the air, "You are supposed to say it 'just like that' because... because..." and he breaks himself off with a scoff because he _is _crying now, and you don't know how to handle this time, "Seven months, Bones. That's all we have, and I don't want to wake up one moment and have you not be there and have no clue why." his voice is quiet now, and it scares you.

You have to look away-you know you're wrong but you don't know what to say. You think of something, open your mouth but he beats you to the chase.

"You aren't going to die." Jim says with a finality no one could contest and walks up to you, gets in your face and you can't decide whether to kiss him or punch him, so you keep your fists clenched by your sides, "You aren't going to die because I'm going to fix this. I don't know how but _I am_."

And when he says it like that, you just have to believe him, no matter how impossible it seems. You just have to, because you know the man you love can summon miracles with ease and save the world and you. So when you fall to your knees and cry, it's not because you know you're going to die.

It's because, before this moment, you never knew how much you wanted to live.

He falls down after you and rocks you until the exhaustion takes over and you fall asleep, his voice ghosting past your ear, "I'm not going to let you die-I love you too much to let you."

Jim Kirk pulled off a miracle just like your heart told you he would.

You thought you were going to die. There was no _doubt_ you had days left, that at any moment you would fall asleep and never see the face of your little girl who didn't remember you or your handsome captain who would always remember you (so you hoped) or _anything_ ever again.

He should have realized that James T. Kirk had a bad habit of waiting until the last minute. and then the good habit of bringing things back from the brink and kissing everything better.

You have minutes or days left when Jim burst into the private room in sickbay you have been holed up in since you started really deteriorating, "Bones, Bones, Bones." he repeated as he practically dove onto the biobed and clung to him, "I've got it, you're gonna be okay, Bones, because _I've got it._" Jim's smiling so hard it's bringing tears to his eyes, and that's the only thing that's really registering in your sleep/illness addled brain.

You stare at him blankly as he kisses your face (and it feels like when a little girl was scribbling lipstick on your cheeks or dusting powder on your eyelids), memorizing it all over again, repeating again and again, "It's okay, it's okay, I've got it."

And you know, deep in your heart, he does.

You remember everything now with startling clarity, even the things you couldn't before. You remember patients and jokes the nurses tossed around in the academy clinics, the concerned tone of your ex-wife and the excited babbles of a little girl over vid-cam.

But most of everything, you remember a boy-now-man with startling blue eyes like a Savannah-summer sky following you everywhere, smiling, laughing, joking, flirting.

He is everything to you, and you are everything to him. You are sun and moon, earth and sky. You have everything.

And, finally, as you kiss him when you know you are going to live (and those words have never sounded so good), you are happy again.

"_Painted skies._

_I've seen so many that cannot compare,_

_To your ocean eyes._

_The pictures you took_

_That cover your room,_

_And it was just like the sun_

_But more like the moon._

_A light that can reach it all._

_So now I'm branded for taking the fall._

_So when you say forever,_

_Can't you see you've already captured me?_"

~_The Sun and The Moon _by Mae

**(Author's End Notes: Thank you for reading! This story seems rather rushed, and I don't have a beta just yet to check it over and make corrections. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this enough to take the time to review. Constructive criticism is welcome, but please, no flames. Don't waste your time and mine. )**


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